1. Technical Field
This invention relates to wall box mounted lighting dimmers and more particularly relates to a dimmer having a bezel kit with a dual function air-gap switch and configurable buttons.
2. Background Art
Wall box dimmers are well known and frequently have a triac, a silicon controlled rectifier (SCR), a field effect transistor (FET), or any other controllably conductive semiconductor structure that is operable to deliver variable power to a lighting load. The controllably conductive device is frequently provided with an on/off control actuator and a dimmer level control actuator mounted in and operable from the front surface of the dimmer. It is required, in order to be “UL listed”, to also provide an air-gap switch, which can be located in and operated from the same front surface of the device to provide a definite disconnect of the alternating-current (AC) power from the lighting load, independent of the off-time of the controllably conductive power device.
It is very desirable to organize the control actuators on the front surface of the dimmer to present an attractive smooth and uncluttered appearance while also being easy to configure with various combinations of buttons to allow ready customization.
The inventors have discovered that it would also be very desirable to utilize a required air-gap switch to provide additional functionality when it is not being used to interrupt an external AC load and to even combine a “night-light” feature into such a switch.